Exploring Freirean Terms
- Pallavi Sharma
- Jun 15, 2020
- 4 min read
Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher of education and activist proposed liberation education.
Oppression is the connecting theme of all of Freire’s works. The political climate in which his ideas had birthed was the early 1970s, a time reeling in the anti-Vietnam-war sentiments, the success of Mao’s Red Guards in China, and protests against university curricula across the world (Kumar, 1998). Thus, the need for democratic education to construct a civil society made Freire’s ideas popular.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) he explores many significant key terms such as dialogue, praxis, generative themes, limit-situations, critical consciousness, educators as co-ordinators, people as co-investigators, culture-circles, so on and so forth. These terms are often laden with complexity and are entrenched in the progressive and to some extent the social reconstructionist ideology (Schiro, 2013). Freire (1970; 1993) also distinguishes between problem-posing versus the banking style of education. A thorough understanding of the aforementioned terms makes the distinction between the two styles of education clearer. He argues that the ‘dialogic method’ of education should enable humans to critically reflect on their oppressive states through investigations of ‘generative themes’ that stems from the realities of their culture. In this paper I shall attempt to elaborate on my understandings of Freire’s ‘generative theme’.
According to Freire, a dialogue is important for human existence and, therefore in the transformation of education. To him, dialogue is an act of creation that exists as long as there is love, trust, humility, faith in humankind, hope, and critical thinking. He argues that for the ‘humanist educator’ and ‘authentic revolutionary’, it is the reality of the people that need to be transformed together with peoples support as ‘co-investigators’. Everyday realities of people provide the content of education which Freire calls ‘generative theme’. In order to define the term further, Freire urges that it needs to be first and foremost understood as an objective fact. These could be thought of as concepts that are universally accepted, broad and general.
“Generative themes are apprehended in the human-world relationship. To investigate a generative theme is to investigate peoples' thinking about reality and peoples actions upon reality, which is their praxis” (Freire, 1970; 1993). Further, he uses the comparison between animals and humans to argue that humans as historical beings can critically reflect and through ‘praxis’ can transform their relationship with the world. This is the fodder for the generative themes. It can be understood as concentric circles that move from general to particular themes of universal character. Freire (1970;1993) provides ‘domination’ as an example of the generative theme of his epoch which compelled him to achieve the opposite, liberation. Through another example of underdevelopment, Freire argues that, in smaller circles, themes can be characteristics of societies. In this case, the third world.
Freire’s method was used in a successful literacy campaign in Nicaragua where illiteracy rate was brought down from 50% to 13%, where students (often adults) were shown series of pictures from their everyday life to illicit ‘generative words’. These ‘generative words’ suggested ‘generative themes’ for discussion (Betz, 1992). This when used with the method of ‘conscience raising’ introduces people to a critical form of thinking about the world they inhabit.
Freire’s ideas are connected to curricular reform. His ideas have inspired and informed innumerable efforts to dehumanize the life of those who have been oppressed by economic and ideological structures that deprived them of their rights and justice (Glass, 2001). The practice of dialogue and generative theme which deepens historical awareness and critical consciousness is educational. The focus on cultural realities and anthropology by Freire is reminiscent and evokes the ideas of Jane Addams’ insistence over the rich cultural material an immigrant child brings to the classroom which the teacher needs to be cognizant of (Addams, 1908). Generative themes resonates with ideas such as the participatory theory of knowledge as proposed by Dewey (Betz,1992) and even ‘learner-centric’ ideology (Schiro,2013). This method challenges what Freire would call ‘banking style of education’ or traditionalist view of the curriculum where the learners are treated as mere subjects who need to be deposited with what the curriculum outlines. By involving the learners in the process of curriculum reform, education can become authentic.
While assessing the strength and validity of the ‘generative theme’ relative to what Freire is trying to convey in chapter three of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it can be argued that as radical as his ideas might be they are in a way utopic. I agree to disagree with the term ‘generative theme’ in relation to the realities I inhabit. In the developing world which is the center of Freire’s theorizing, there seem to be two major functions of education: 1. Selective or certifying function and 2. Enhancing the intellectual capacity of society. With the primary focus on the former function of education, globalization, exploitation of resources, and class conflict, ‘banking education’ is likely to flourish (Kumar,1998). Enhancing the intellectual capacity if society still remains a utopic dream to be achieved. This disparity is clearly evident in the unequal access to quality education in my milieu. There exists a huge divide between public and private school education which operates on a buffet system, those who have the means can access the facilities of private schools with an array of international curricula to choose from, rest still succumb to the abysmal conditions of over-crowded classrooms, teacher deficiency, traditional curricula, and alienated world. Worth mentioning here is the wide digital divide that has become even more apparent in current times of the pandemic. Nevertheless, efforts have been made in my milieu to make education accessible through public-private partnerships and non-governmental organizations. Reformers have suggested changes and focus on communities’ cultural realities to be taken into National Education Policy (Draft NEP, 2009).
References
Addams, J. (1908). The Public School & the Immigrant Child. Retrieved May 1, 2020 from https://educ820in2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/addams-1908-the-publicschool-and-the-immigrant-child.pdf.
Betz, J. (1992). John Dewey and Paulo Freire. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 28(1), 107-126. Retrieved May 11, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/40320356
Draft National Education Policy , Draft National Education Policy (2019).
Freire, P. (1970, 1993). Chapter 3 In Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved May 7, 2020, from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon2/pedagogy/pedagogychapter3.html
Glass, R. (2001). On Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Praxis and the Foundations of Liberation Education. Educational Researcher, 30(2), 15-25. Retrieved May 13, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/3594336
Kumar, K. (1998). Freire's Legacy. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(46), 2912-2915. Retrieved May 11, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/4407379
Schiro, M. S. (2013). Curriculum theory: Conflicting visions and enduring concerns (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved May 11, 2020 from: https://talkcurriculum.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/schiro-m-2013-introduction-to-the-curriculum-ideologies.pdf
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